


People Who Love Us

by AlreadyThere



Series: The Promise [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Breakup, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Sequel, domestic abuse, ish, sad with sad ending as per usual for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlreadyThere/pseuds/AlreadyThere
Summary: Conner Kent has a choice: leave the only one who's ever loved him unconditionally, or let himself be hurt again.Sequel/Epilogue toAt the Gates of Gethsemane





	People Who Love Us

**Author's Note:**

> "Hey Guyz I'll be back in a few months"
> 
> *exactly one year later*
> 
> guess who's back? back again? Already There's back! tell absolutely no one since it's a fan fiction thing and what's the first rule of fan fiction? DON'T TELL RL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR WEIRD SUPERMAN FAN FICTION!
> 
> So let me explain why this has taken longer than expected and the "sequel" is MUCH shorter than expected:
> 
> Part of my joy from writing fic is trying to fit the pieces exactly into an already created world - like a puzzle. I love reading AU but usually don't write it ( _usually_ \- I'm sort of working on a Blue Beetle/Booster Gold AU thing right now). So I was actually doing a pretty bang up job on _Fall With Me_ (the sequel to AtGoG, henceforth "FWM") when we all got the news:
> 
> YOUNG JUSTICE IS COMING BACK!!!
> 
> I was immensely happy but had two options: ignore a third season of cannon and release FWM around December or so (I hated what I had already wrote and started over) OR release an altered version of the first chapter as a "tweenquel" and wait for season three to release FWM. I ended up deciding to wait until season three is out as the first part of FWM will deal with the time period in the years after season two and it would really really bother me if everything I wrote was "wrong", especially as FWM is more about Conner's relationships with other people on the team, and it would be quickly dated if, say, Wally came back to life in the show but not in my story (and yeah, maybe it would help me if the show made that choice for me as I literally have some scenes written with him alive and some with him not because I HADN'T DECIDED YEt oops).
> 
> HOWEVER, I will ignore cannon (shudder) for FWM if 1) Season Three contradicts my story in a way I can't fix (like, a reveal that Wonder Woman and Superman were hooking up the whole time) or 2) It's renewed for a fourth season. Like I'll wait a few months but not years and years. This fic ain't that epic lol.
> 
> Anyway that's enough of my internal drama.
> 
> TLDR: If this piece reads like a transition chapter or exposition or backstory, that's cause it is. It's an epilogue to my last story and a prologue to the next, not an actual story.
> 
> Edit 6/17/2018 - Added cover image from fanfiction dot net

 

 

Conner awakes from a dream in a cold sweat. His phone rang beside him, but he would have to call the person back; he needed a moment.

 

He thought he was dead.

 

He had been taking Jason shopping in an odd mall. As they wove in and out of the stores that seemed to transform types in front of them, Jason would turn to him, asking if he was okay. They exited in an outdoor market in a small town, as if it was normal to enter a department store and leave though a canvas tent. At one point they were joined by a young girl who kept on disappearing as Conner tried to look at her; when Conner tried to ask Jason who she was, his mouth felt full of cotton and he could not speak. Eventually, Jason understood him and gave him a glazed over, puzzled look. "She's _your_ sister," Jason told him, and with a start Conner realized that Jason had died months ago, and if both he and Clark's daughter were with him then he…

 

Relived to feel solid in bed and able to speak again, Conner glanced at his phone and resolved to call Clark back as soon as he collected his bearings. He stood in front of the mirror and stared into his own eyes reminding himself what is real and what is not. _You're alive. Jason is dead._

 

Conner quickly reasoned away the odder parts of the dream. He couldn't see his…Clark's kid in his dream was because she was never a little girl - he had been to a NICU once and saw what the girl looked like when she died, and, he was ashamed to say, it terrified him. .

 

He calls Clark back and Clark asks him to go on patrol with him since Conner didn't have a mission that night. Conner thought that a perfect remedy to clearing out whatever sick images filled his head and said he would come. He splashes some water on his face, grabs a hand full of pretzels from the kitchen, and runs to Metropolis moments after ending the call.

 

"You alright, Kon? You look off," Clark asks in place of a greeting as Conner arrives at his and Lois's apartment.

 

"I…" Conner thinks, trying to phrase what happened carefully. "I just had a really weird dream about Jason. It wasn't a nightmare or anything," he interjects quickly, not wanting Clark to think of him as a child. "Just a really out there dream that Jason was in. Reminded me that I'll never see him again."

 

Clark nods sympathetically. "I'm here if you want to talk about it."

 

"Yeah. Thanks."

 

The night did little to ease his mind.

 

"You okay, Conner?"

 

Conner stumbles out of the Zeta tube to see M'gann at the kitchen counter, sipping a mug of tea and staring into the bright screen of the tablet. Partway through patrol Clark got a call from Diana, said that there's a situation and a victim, that her new sidekick is compromised and she needs more hands on scene.

 

All Conner did was hold the fourteen year old sidekick's hair back while she vomited into the grass, then got her a tissue to wipe up the mess. Maybe he should've done more. Told her she'd be okay after a few more missions, or that the other mentees preferred not to be called sidekicks and maybe she should stop identifying herself as such.

 

He wouldn't have wanted either. He would've wanted the older kid bothering him while he threw his guts out and to go away.

 

"I'm…I'm just going to go to bed."

 

 _The last thing I want to do is talk to M'gann,_ he thinks to himself in the shower. Her cloying sweet voice, the aghast shudder as he tells her what he saw tonight…she's been in this game for years, she's lost multiple team members and seen worse than he saw tonight. It's like she has to put on a show of it all to prove she hasn't lost herself. M'gann would act as horrified as Cassie did just to show she hasn't gone psychotic. They've all seen monsters and he knows they can all carry on just fine.

 

He finds her in his bed and, for a brief moment considers asking if she wants to have sex, but the night's images play through his head and he suddenly wonders if he'll ever want to fuck again.

 

As he begins to drift off, he regrets his thoughts from earlier. She's nice, she's kind, she's so very wonderful and she's all he has, Conner thinks as she falls asleep in his arms.

 

So he trusts her. He has too.

 

Until he places the distant, empty feeling and jolts up in bed.

 

The imprints of memories wear on Clark. M'gann _knows_ that.

 

It's like catching water in your hands or staring at a broken mirror.

 

 _What the hell am I missing?_ Conner thinks to himself. "Wake up!" He yells, shaking his companion awake.

 

"What is it? Are we under attack?" M'gann jumps off the bed and begins covering herself in her uniform.

 

"No one's after you," Conner snaps. M'gann relaxes only slightly, bathing in the anger radiating off him. "Why the hell can I not remember something? What am I forgetting?"

 

M'gann says nothing.

 

Then she bursts into tears and tells him everything.

 

Conner doesn't hear her words and yet he understands - he understands everything _very_ clearly now.

 

"How could you do this?" He doesn’t wait for her to answer, instead standing up and turning away from her.

 

"I'm so sorry Conner. I didn't want to. I _love_ you!"

 

Years and years later, long after he broke up with M'gann for the last time, while he was sitting with his wife on the balcony of their second apartment together, he would realize that M'gann answered his question.  For the third time, Conner would hear the set of words that defined his life since the moment Lex Luthor placed his hand against the Plexiglas barrier of his pod - since Lex realized he had underestimated why he decided to clone his former best friend.

 

 _"Sometimes people who love you don't act like it. That's unforgivable_ ," Conner's wife tells him, speaking in borrowed words and not meeting his eyes. "We know that more than most."

 

Today, Conner hears not an answer but an apology, one he does not want to hear and one not deserving of acceptance.

 

"Fuck off!" He yells, sending Wolf cowering into the other room at the sound of his voice. "I don't want to hear it."

 

With that, Conner leaves the mountain.

 

 

"Break up with her," Clark tells Conner quickly, barely letting him finish the events of the night. He's back in Metropolis, on the balcony of Clark's apartment barely more than an hour from when he left before.

 

"Shouldn't I try-"

 

"She _violated_ you. And she'll do it again. Please, I don't want you to go through this."

 

Conner huffs and throws himself onto the couch. He wanted to hear an answer, a reason to forgive her. He wanted to hear he was being stupid to care. "I think we can work it out."

 

"Break up with her and I'll let you tell Bruce about this on your own time."

 

Conner stops and stares at him. "You wouldn't."

 

"Don't tell me what I wouldn't do to protect you from losing your memory again. You'll lose something important, Conner. Something you can never get back."

 

Conner's eyes widen slightly. "I" he stutters "You mean that?"

 

"Just do it, Kon."

 

After a long moment, Clark stops pacing and sits next to a silently fuming Conner on the couch. "I'm sorry. I won't tell Bruce no matter what you decide."

 

The two sit alone in silence for a long moment, and both let their thoughts wander. Clark's thoughts turned to Lex, and while four years ago this would be uncomfortable but expected, tonight it was shocking and painful. Conner rarely made Clark think of Lex anymore.

 

Four years ago, Clark thought he could never face Lex the way he did before it all - hero and nemesis, crusader and villain.

 

But then he did. Late of that year March Lex devised one of his unholy schemes to force a group of impoverished Metropolis citizens out of their homes so he could make some sort of dumb development. Clark found out how to stop Lex and did so. Just like old times.

 

The two seemed to fall into an uneasy truce, Superman stopping Lex when he impeded on the rights of Metropolis's citizens, Lex stopping Superman when he came in his way, but neither seeking each other out. Clark realized soon that Lex had stopped killing indiscriminately - not because of some sense of morals, but because when he killed, Clark was not far behind.

 

And, as it soon became clear, Lex did not want to see Clark either.

 

Conner suspects the man cannot bring himself to accept the betrayal of his best friend _and_ his son. Stupidly Lex let the two appear identical, and so when one stares at him in horror or disgust he automatically sees the other's eyes, and that's slowly driving him insane. Conner also suspects that the sentence Clark said to him on that cold night in February, the one Conner wrote in an almost empty notebook so his memory could never corrupt the words, had some odd effect on the man as well.

 

_What I said sixteen years ago, on the side of that highway when you almost killed that deer. I still believe it, Lex. Every word._

 

It meant something to Lex and Clark but very little to Conner, beside providing evidence that his two fathers had once been very good friends. As he got older, the thought that his parents once "loved" (in a strictly platonic sense on Clark's part, and a sense he rather not explore from Lex) each other brought him some normalcy. While he told everyone who asked that his parents were dead, as per his secret identity, he could craft an easy to remember and normal story to tell particularly nosy friends. _My parents cared about each other a long time ago, but they were never really together. They hated each other by the time I was born. Then they died._

 

The short, clean and vaguely horrifying story kept his close friends from off the Team from asking anymore questions and only had a single lie. Wendy in particular gasped in horror when he started mentioning the years of psychological warfare between them and never, ever asked about his parents again.

 

"Thanks," Conner responds to Clark almost five minutes later. "I don't want to go back to the Cave tonight."

 

Clark nods and ushers Conner off the couch "I think I left the pillows in the hall closest."

 

Conner grabs some pillows while Clark quickly makes up the sofa bed for him to sleep on. He doesn't stay here often, but it happens enough for there to be a routine. Within three minuets Conner's lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. For the first time in months, he can't sleep. His thoughts drift to M'gann, and then to Jason again, how he didn't do enough when he was alive to help him…

 

He lies in bed for an hour before giving up and putting a TV show on his phone and watching that instead of trying to sleep. He really only needed three hours or so of rest; skipping a night wouldn't hurt. Ten minutes later he heard crying from the small bedroom, followed by Lois cursing and rolling out of bed.

 

There were nights in the Cave when it seemed like no one could sleep for no particular reason, like the place had been filled with a dark energy. Maybe the psychic link had grown so strong they could sense when the others awoke, or maybe a deep evolutionary sense gave them the ability to feel the danger that comes with awaking in the night. Sure, nights when missions had been rough or the weeks after Tula and Jason had died, the Cave had been restless, but then there were nights when Conner found himself standing in the kitchen, staring at the fridge with a teammate by his side since neither could sleep and neither knew what to do about it.

 

"I can take her if she's not hungry," He tells Lois as she paces through the apartment, trying to quite her daughter. "I can't sleep either."

 

Lois nods, hands him Ellie and walks back to her bedroom. "Thanks," she mumbles.

 

"All right," he whispers to the girl. "Let's be quiet and not wake up your mom and dad, okay Ellie?" Predictably, his pleas didn't work. "Come on, I'll let you watch Rated R movies and buy you ice cream when your parents aren't around?"

 

She stopped screaming eventually, but Conner kept holding her to be sure she had gone to sleep. He wondered idly if he had cried a lot as a baby, but had to stop soon after as he began imagining Dubbilex solemnly holding an infant and signing "rock-a-bye baby", as that scene made him almost laugh out loud.

 

The earliest thing Conner could remember had been a dream, probably from around the age of two or three weeks. Clark was there, talking to him, and that's all he could remember. For weeks he thought (or maybe simply hopped) that it had been real, but then he grew up, and by the time he had turned fourteen weeks old he realized the truth. The last vestiges of hope had been blown away the night Dick, Wally and Kaldur had rescued him

 

Clark's been awkwardly making up for the first few months for the last four years. He offered Conner a home in Metropolis and asked Conner to call him "Dad" a year after a week after the two…met with Luthor, but Conner rejected both offers.

 

"You can't be my dad," Conner told him simply. "We're just going to always have this awkward relationship where you're not really a parent but I have to act like you are? I don't want to do that."

 

"I'm going to start acting like a real dad."

 

"Well, I'd have to be in Metropolis for that and I'm staying in Happy Harbor. I like it. My friends, my team and my school are all there; I don't want to make new friends at a new school."

 

"I was just…you don't have to come to Metropolis. I wouldn't make you leave your home. You know you're always welcome though, right? At my place?"

 

"I know. You already told me."

 

The two sat in silence. "I want to be a part of your life."

 

Confused, Conner stared at him. "I know. I didn't say you couldn't."

 

"You don't want me to be your dad though?"

 

"We can still _see_ each other if we're not father and son. I mean, you're still going to train me, right? You can just be my mentor."

 

"How about I be your older brother then?" Clark compromised.

 

Since that afternoon, Clark became Conner's mentor and, for the most part, his brother. Sometimes though, when either became upset or scared, when lives became threatened or hope shattered, the truth leaked through and Conner remembered Clark would always be his father, just as Conner would always be Clark's son.

 

By sunrise, Ellie was back in bed and Lois had awoken again. "Couldn't sleep in," she mumbles to Conner, putting on a pot of coffee. "Clark an' Ellie and I are going to Smallville today to see the Homecoming game with Jon and Martha. There's still tickets if you want to go with us."

 

"Nothing else to do," Conner responds. He doesn't want to return to the Cave and face M'gann - or worse, her little brother who hated when they fought. Lois nodded and called Martha, asking her to get another ticket for the game.

 

"I don't want to pry, but I'm assuming you're hiding here because you and M'gann are fighting?" Lois asks him, pouring Conner a cup of coffee.

 

"Clark thinks we should break up."

 

Lois almost drops her own mug. "Really? Clark loves M'gann! We both do! I mean we do now. I can hate her if you want."

 

Conner smiles weakly. "She just violated my trust, respect and personal existence. Nothing major."

 

Lois frowns and sits across from him at the table. "She cheat on you?"

 

"No. Just…She did some psychic stuff to me without my permission."

 

"Wow. That's not good, Conner."

 

"She apologized. I just needed some space from her for a while."

 

"Still. I think Clark's right this time."

 

"Right about what?" Clark asks as he enters the kitchen. "We're all going to Smallville today to see the Homecoming game with Ma and Pa."

 

"I'm going," Conner interrupted. "Lois already asked me."

 

"Good. We should call my mom-"

 

"Already handled. They have just ten tickets left," Lois explains. "And loan Conner one of your sweatshirts. Probably one of your actual shirts too - did you bring any clothes? I'm assuming you're going to avoid your teammates for the rest of the weekend." Conner had in fact already texted Dick to tell him he was taking a few personal days.

 

"I have some clothes here. I'll wear one of the shirts Martha got me for my birthday."

 

"Oh wow, we'll see you in something other than a Superboy shirt? It's a Christmas miracle!"

 

"It's September."

 

"It's sarcasm."

 

"All right, enough. I thought we were all adults now?" Clark interrupts them. "We're taking the Zeta in a half an hour, so if you want to shower, Conner, do it quickly. Lois and I showered last night so the bathroom's all yours."

 

"Ew," Conner mumbles, pulling himself out of his chair.

 

"Not like that! God," Clark responds as Conner leaves the room. He's halfway to the bathroom when he realizes he too showered the night before - it just felt so long ago he didn't remember. Instead, he finds his stash of clothes in the hall closet and just changes in the bathroom. He feels so odd putting on the deep red tee shirt - he wore the same tee shirt for so long in the beginning that to this day putting something else on feels wrong. He sighs and decides to ask Clark for a zipper hoodie so Aunt Martha can see he's actually wearing other clothes - it's something she worries about and he wants to appear like he's okay, even though he's not.

 

It takes closer to forty-five minutes for everyone to get ready - Conner loves his little niece but he finds kids so disruptive he doubts he will ever have any of his own. Conner even asked Clark once how he manages work, League stuff and parenting, and he told him that the super powers helped a bit (he could go from work to daycare in seconds while it took Lois a quarter of an hour). Once Ellie stops fussing and they get her in a tiny little Crows onesie, the four gets in the Zeta and meets Jonathan and Martha Kent outside the Smallville stop.

 

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you! And look, you have one of the shirts I bought you!" Martha smiles at Clark as if he has any control over Conner's outfits. Thankfully Ellie is enough of a distraction for her to stop worrying about his fashion choices. "And how's my granddaughter doing?" she asks Ellie.

 

"Hey son," Jonathan greets Conner, pulling him into a bear hug. "Bruce keeping you busy?"

 

"Very busy, Uncle Jonathan."

 

"Well, I'm glad he let you off work today for the big game. You can see the Crows beat _Grandville,"_ Jonathan says with a sneer, eyes narrowing at a group of teenagers in the other team's colors. They kids quickly scurry away from them.

 

Jonathan, Lois and Clark begin an animated discussion of the various players and they're strengths this year, Clark and Jonathan comparing them to players in their own time as football players. He's still shocked Clark was on the football team - at Happy Harbor High, the football players were the coolest students and Clark's a bit of a dork. The only reason Conner himself had any social status was because he was dating a cheerleader and could go to football parties when there was no mission.

 

He quickly shook his head to clear the thoughts of M'gann from it. He was going to spend a well-deserved day with his family, who he's barely seen in months, and not think about her.

 

"Parker isn't doing as well this year and that's a right shame, but if McCarthy can pull himself together I heard there's a Met U recruiter in the audience. He has a bright future there if they take him," Jonathan explained.

 

"Met U? Pretty impressive. They're team could do with some fresh blood right now, they're doing badly," Conner had to assume all Clark said was true as he had no idea. He nodded and looked around for some food to keep from having to talk about football, as he understood it little even after four years of watching the games.

 

"I was going to get a pretzel; anyone want anything?" Conner asks.

 

"Get me nachos!" Lois exclaims. Martha and Jonathan decide to get corndogs and Clark offers to walk with him.

 

"Thanks for helping out with Ellie last night," Clark tells him as they wait in line for the food. "You didn't have to."

 

"It was nothing," Conner shrugs. "She didn't wake me, we both couldn't sleep. I'm just better at dealing with it than she is."

 

Clark chuckles. "I'm glad you two get along."

 

"Well, she's a baby. We don't exactly talk about our philosophical opinions and political differences."

 

"Yeah, I know but…I'm glad you like her."

  
"Well yeah, she's my niece. What are you getting?"

 

"I'll pay, you just help me carry it. I mean, I'm glad you don't…resent her or anything like that."

 

Conner smiles awkwardly. "We're up."

 

"Oh. What was it? Two corn dogs, a pretzel - what do I want? Nachos or pretzel?"

 

"Get both and I'll split the nachos with you."

  
"All right," Clark turns back to a harried looking sixteen year old at the concession booth. "Two corndogs, two pretzels, two nachos, two cokes, a diet Dr. Pepper and two Sprites," The concession girl nods and quickly gets her partner to assemble the food.

 

"I wouldn't ever resent Ellie," Conner tells Clark as they carry the food and drinks to the bleachers where the others are sitting. "Everything that happened, well, it isn't our fault so it's even less of her's. She wasn't even _born._ "

 

Clark nods. "Right. Of course."

 

Conner lasted until the third quarter until he needed to leave again to avoid long discussions of football and staring into space thinking about M'gann. He wanders over to the end zone where shirts are being sold and idly searches through the merchandise until seeing a thin redhead with a Jefferson University backpack wander away. It's been almost six months since they last spoke in person.

 

"Lena!" He yells, catching up with her. She spins around and pulls him into a hug. "Didn't know you would be here!"

 

"It's _homecoming._ Means the alumni come _back home._ "

 

"Yeah, but you're all the way at Jeff U in Central!"

 

"Keystone. I took the Amtrak. You bring Megan?"

 

The scowl that crosses Conner's face betrays that they're not doing well.

 

"Good," She responds. "I never liked her. Oh, and I have more files on You-know-who I need to send you. Nice seeing ya!" And with that, Lena leaves.  

 

Conner continues to wander until he reaches a gate near the end zone and leans forward on it, not having anything else to do.

 

"I get bored too."

 

Conner turns around to see Martha approach him. "Oh, hey Aunt Martha. Yeah, I just needed a break from the game…"

 

She smiles and leans on the gate beside him. "Jonathan and I miss you. Come around more often, okay?"

 

"I'm off on Fridays, I can come then."

 

"Well, I don't want to pressure you. Only come if you want to."

 

"Of course I want to, Aunt Martha. I always want to see you, I just get busy with the Team and school…" Conner almost mentioned M'gann as well.

 

"You're very busy - both of you. Off saving the world, with the League and the Team and _The Planet._ "

 

"Not too busy to see you!"

 

She shakes her head. "Sometimes you are. That’s okay. Just know you're always welcome here."

 

"I know."

 

Martha gives him a side hug as they watch the players do who knows what to each other. "Whatever's going on - and I don't know what it is, but I can tell there's something - you'll make the right choice. You have good instincts."

 

Conner didn't know why he began to cry - he had only cried three times that he could remember his entire life and the last time had been at Jason's _funeral_ for Christ sakes, and only after he and Artemis cornered Dick in the bathroom to get him to _actually_ talk about what happened (and then Dick started crying, so Artemis started crying, and crying is really like vomiting in that once one person starts everyone else can't help but follow).

 

"Oh god," Conner whispers, holding back a sob. "I'm sorry."

 

"Don't be sorry," Martha responds shaking her head "Don't ever be sorry for being upset, you hear? That's normal. That's human - and before you tell me you're an alien, I know from Clark that it's normal for Kryptonians too."

 

"Oh-Okay."

 

"You don't have to tell me what's going on now. But someday - someday when you can talk about it - you can always come to me." Conner didn't know why this hurt so much, didn't know why loosing M'gann hurt as much as Jason's death, until many years later, when he lost M'gann for the last time. Once he pulled himself back together, he and Martha leave to sit with the others again.

 

" _Unah ni_? You okay?" Clark whispers so low only Conner can hear as he sits down. The message, innocent but coded, sends a brush of relief through his arms. He answers as Clark's son, the words reminding him that there was the truth he used to protect himself and the real truth, the one hidden through the language that both found distant and foreign yet oddly familial. _I'd do anything to help you, Conner,_ Clark's question asked _Just tell me what to do or say._

 

"I have to do this on my own. I don't think you can help me - but I appreciate it. I really, really do."

 

At the end of the game, he hugs everyone, kisses Ellie and, once they get away from the crowd, begins to run. He runs to Central City and runs to Artemis's and Wally's apartment. Just one more person. If he could just get one person to tell them to stay together, and that one person was Artemis Crock, the most emotionally balanced person he knew, or Wally West, not the most emotionally balanced but in a much better place than Dick, then he would stay with M’gann.

 

"The two of you are both of our friends, so I know telling you this is kind of awkward," he says as he finishes what happened between M'gann and him. "But I just…" Conner trails off and shrugs.

 

"The people who love us don't always act like it. We know that better than most. I've forgiven my sister, but it's taken a while. I haven't forgiven my father, but he hasn't really tried to fix it, has he?"

 

Years later he repeated those words to a girl when she herself felt unloved and forgotten. Then, on the worse night of Conner's life, the girl he repeated Artemis's words to - the woman he fell in love with - gave the words back to him.

 

The three sit silently around the kitchen table, holding mugs of coffee and not making eye contact. "You don't need to leave her forever…maybe you can forgive her some day. You two are still going to be teammates, right?" Wally asks.

 

"Yeah. No offense to you two, but I couldn't stop doing this, and it's nice not doing it alone."

 

"You can join the League."

 

The three finally laugh. "I don't think Clark and I could be on the same team. He'd be weird about it."

 

They talk for another few hours, about the past, about the future. At around 1:00 am Conner says goodbye and finds the nearest Zeta tube home. He finds M'gann standing in the middle of the kitchen, drying a plate meticulously with a cleaning rag and talking to Gar.

 

"Conner!" Garfield yells excitedly upon seeing him enter. The two adults catch each other's eyes and make a silent agreement to humor her brother for a few minutes before having their discussion.

 

"Hey man!" Conner fakes excitement, giving Gar a high five and flashing him a smile more like Clark's than his own. "You have a good Saturday?"

 

"The best! Would've been better if you were here though. I gotta get to my room though - video games call!" He responds excitedly. Conner does not miss the reassuring glance Garfield gives M'gann.

 

"Night Gar!" M'gann tells her brother.

 

"Night," Conner tells him half heartedly, knowing that he would break the kid's heart when M'gann tells him what happens tomorrow morning.

 

The two wait for the sounds of _League of Legends_ to begin before Conner begins talking.

 

"We can't be together anymore," He tells her, levelheaded, calm and unlike him. "I'm ending it."

 

"Don't be like this," she responds curtly. "We'll get through this. You're being dramatic."

 

"You went into my head and changed my memories. Made me think differently. I won't forgive that."

 

"I did it once, and I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I did it because I couldn't stand you being mad at me, okay? I did it cause I wanted to be with you."

 

"It's just another way you controlled me," He tells her slowly. "And I don't want to be controlled. Not ever again. You should know that."

 

"I'm not controlling you, I'm keeping you in control!"

 

"You've always been controlling my life! You named me after that guy from _Hello Megan_ cause you wanted to be like her for Christ's sake!"

 

"At least I gave you a name! Clark told you to do this, didn't he? He told you to break up with me!"

 

"How'd you know that, huh? Read my mind again? Fuck around in it a little?"

 

"It's because I _know_ you, Conner! I know you better than anyone! And Clark's the real one controlling your life - he didn't even love you when he first met you! I loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you!"

 

 _"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!"_ Conner screams, shaking his fists in fury. A moment of fear flashes across M'gann's face. "You don't know anything about that - and it's none of your business. Clark always loved me, okay? Don't ever say he didn't."

 

"You're delusional."

 

"You give me delusions."

 

"Fine," M'gann says coolly. "Leave me. Leave the only good thing in your life, the only stable factor. Leave the first one who ever loved you. Go on."

 

To her surprise, Conner turns on his heels and silently heads towards the Zeta Beam, head held high and fists held clenched.   Before he leaves, he turns to M'gann for a final time.

 

"Luthor loved me first. Looks like you're as bad as him."

**Author's Note:**

> NOT MAKING ANY PROMISES ABOUT WHEN THE NEXT ONE IS COMING. but...in a perfect world I would like to post it a few weeks after the last Young Justice Season 3 episode is out. now to get $$$ for the fucking subscription service..........................


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